党参亚属 dang shen ya shu

Plants fetid, often strongly so. Roots carrot-shaped, fusiform, or tuberous. Stems erect, ascending, climbing, procumbent, or twining. Corolla epigynous, 5-lobed for less than 1/2 its length and campanulate, funnelform, or tubular. Fruit an ovoid loculicidal capsule or globose berry. Seed testa reticulate.

Thirty-seven species: Tajikistan to Russia (Far East), Japan, and Indonesia (Java); 35 species (21 endemic) in China.

Species nos. 1-15, with stem twining, leafy throughout, often over 1 m, are assigned to Codonopsis sect. Codonopsis. Species nos. 16-35, with stems erect or ascending, often scapiform, sometimes climbing or procumbent but never twining, less than 1 m tall, belong to C. sect. Erectae (Komarov) D. Y. Hong.